May 14, 2013
“How are we still in Uruguay? It is May and we had planned to be in Argentina long before now. I guess we have really “learned” to relax. I have loved our time here, but I am ready to go. We still have a long way to go to reach Colombia. A few days ago we met with the vet to get the papers for the dogs to cross the border. This will be our first border crossing with dogs. Hope it goes well.”
We were leaving Uruguay after having spent 5 months there (the month home excluded). That comes to 153 days in Uruguay. Originally we planned to stay only 2 or 3 months, but we were delayed waiting for our car. ALSO:
1. Living in a beach home had been on the bucket list and we hated to leave.
Final view from our deck
Last walk on the beach
2.We made some wonderful new friends, like Ximena, who we hope to keep in touch with forever.
3. Patricia and Estaban (two bestest friends that went out of their way to help us time and time again) had agreed to watch our dogs when we went home.
4. Chris had the opportunity to volunteer time helping to refurbish a rural school.
5. We had decided to slow down.
6. And many other friends like Joyce & Richard, Pam, Ron & Delise, Dave & Kristin, Yany (taught us Spanish with patience), Mike & Marilyn, and many others. We also miss those that made us feel like locals: especially Roberto at the carniceria.
Having spent this long in Uruguay, we realized that our adventure was likely to be longer than 1 year. OK . . . make it a year and a half. We still planned to spend only a couple months in Argentina. We had heard that the country was in bad shape financially and the people were not friendly. The first part was true, the second part, just the opposite. Argentina turned out to be filled with some of the happiest and most friendly people in all of South America.
Our border crossing went smoothly even with the dogs. Before crossing, we took the dogs to a vet, or I should say, the vet came to our house – nice! He filled out official forms saying the dogs were healthy, current on their Rabies shot, and had just been de-wormed.
Next we had to drive in town to buy special stamps at the bank (work like cash), drive to Maldonado (another town) to pay our fee using the stamps, and then return to Piriapolis to get refunded for the stamps we did not use. It took a few days, but it was worth it when we sailed across the border in record time. It helped we had ALL papers copied in triplicate . . . seemed like a bit of overkill until we had done this a few times. We could only hope that all border crossings would be this easy.
Sedona wistfully staring out the window
It was a long drive from Piriapolis, Uruguay to Cordoba, Argentina. We slept a few hours in the car before crossing the border. If you consider sleeping in a car, you need to find a safe place to park. We often parked near a 24-hour gas station in a well-lit area. Comfort is a matter of opinion. We had half of the back-end open for the dogs. We could sleep there or try to lean against the door in our seats. Neither was ideal, but it was free. I was relieved the gas station provided a bathroom since I seem to need to get up at least once during the night. It was hard to go off the bumper in a city. However, out of the city, nature was often preferable.